A Second Chance for Us
by Solita Belle
Summary: Rose was angry with the Doctor's tendency to make life decisions for her. The Doctor really only had Rose's best interests at heart. The Doctor didn't know when or how he pissed off his new Companion to begin with - or why it was so important for her to forgive him.
1. The Rejoining of the Ways

**Disclaimer:** Anything you recognize belongs to BBC. I'm just playing around with the characters.

 **Warning:** Slow burn. I dislike the way Ten treated Rose and will not just have her take him back. Canon up to at least _Journey's End,_ but since this is a do-it-again story that won't mean much. Further characters will be added as they appear.

* * *

The sound of slamming door marked Rose Tyler's entrance to her newly-minted TARDIS.

 _'_ _Rude',_ she mumbled to herself, only slightly apologetic. _'That's me, rude and_ also _not ginger.'_

"Right, final check!" The light blinked twice in irritation. It showed how deeply in tune with her TARDIS Rose was to automatically understand blinking lights as irritation without the help of the empathic link.

"Oi, don't give me that. Fine! At least re-check the flight systems. First takeoff, don't want any trouble… Oh and that was supposed to reassure me?! I _know_ how you used to fly, _I was there!"_

The light blinked again, but the screen obediently showed a system check. Rose carefully kept any smugness to herself. No need to risk getting the ship all worked up and rebellious.

"First time in this universe, where do you think we should go?" She said out loud, pulling up the limited data she'd managed to gather about this universe and its history with the help of Torchwood. "Do you think they have Barcelona here? The planet, not the city." It was an old habit to banish any memory it pulled up before they even registered in her conscious mind. "Never managed to get there in the other universe. If its relative position to its sun is still the same, maybe the whole evolutional process is similar enough that they still ended up with dogs with no nose?"

The TARDIS sent her the equivalent of an amused grumble and showed her the coordinate of the planet Barcelona, or at least the one in her old universe.

"Right, off we go then!"

Of course, as is typical in the life of Rose Tyler, at least from the moment she took the Doctor's hand onward, things immediately went wrong. The ship lunged, then shook violently, alarms blared, and the lights in the console room all turned mauve.

 _"_ _This is Emergency Program One…"_

And then, all of the sudden, the ship stilled, the lights returned to normal, and all in all it was as if the last ten seconds were only her imagination. Except for the fact that she was now unexplainably standing twenty feet away from where she remembered standing, and someone was talking. In her formerly empty TARDIS.

"—safe in here. The assembled hordes of Genghis Khan couldn't get through that door, and believe me they've tried. Now, shut up a minute."

It was a familiar voice, coming from a familiar, if impossible, face. The owner of that face was turning slightly away from her, doing something on the console that she now realized was similar but subtly different from her own. The explanation for what he was doing washed over her, numb as she was in the face of the dawning implication.

"Right," the impossible man – _not a human, just looked like one – "You humans look like us, Rose. We came first." –_ turned to face her and asked. "Where do you want to start?"

"You have _got_ to be kidding me."

All things considered, it was quite understandable how she reacted during the next few minutes. As well as the rest of the night. She blamed the shock.

* * *

"Riiight," her first Doctor, whom she never thought she'd see again, drawled out awkwardly. Or at least, awkward to those who knew how to read him. "Can't say that's never happened before. Mind you, I was expecting 'It's bigger on the inside!' Still, continue."

"I would think I was dreaming," she obediently continued. "Except even my dreams don't get as unbelievable as this."

"Okayyy," he gave a slow nod with raised eyebrows as if _she_ was the crazy one. "That would be the culture shock. Happens to the best of us."

When she only stared, he went on explaining.

"It's called the TARDIS, this thing. T-A-R-D-I-S, that's-"

"Time and Relative Dimension in Space, yeah."

It was his turn to stare. Oops, maybe shouldn't have said that.

"Look, weren't you doing something?" She tried. As was typical, he went on and ignored her, rapidly crowded her and waved his screwdriver all over her face.

"How do you know that? Are you sure you're human? I checked for plastic, this morning, but you could be a Zygon and bypassed my scan somehow for all I know-"

And just like that, Rose Tyler, time-and-space traveller, Head of Torchwood, Defender of Earth, she who did the impossible and crossed the barrier between universes twice when a Time Lord couldn't manage, snapped. In true Tyler-women style.

"Ouch!" the Doctor cradled his cheek, eyes comically wide. "Did you just slap me?!"

"Look," only years of being the mediator between trigger-happy governments and alien visitors managed to give her the calm she needed to speak without shouting. "You have the Nestene Consciousness somewhere out there planning to conquer the planet, my friend Mickey is in its grab and might get killed at any moment, I think whatever you want to know about me can actually wait until humanity's not at risk of dying by shop window dummies and would you just get your priorities straight before plastic-Mickey's head finish melting?!" Ok, so maybe not completely without shouting.

"Melting?" At last! "Aw, no, no, no, NO! The signal is fading!" The Doctor pulled some levels, and TARDIS started making groaning sounds and gently tipped side to side as she jumped through space. "No, no, no, no, no, no, NO! Almost there, almost there. Here we go!" As soon as the sounds stopped, he ran outside without giving her another glance, with her following sedately behind. In the back of her mind, Rose wondered if this dreamy feeling is normal for people in shock.

"I got the signal. I got _so_ close!" The Doctor kept on with the unneeded explanation, her slip-up seemingly forgotten. She thought, maybe a bit unkindly, that he just liked the sound of his own voice.

"The Nestene Consciousness, the Living Plastic, its food stock was destroyed in the war, all its protein planets rotted. Planet Earth must seem like an all-you-can-eat buffet. All the smoke and oil, toxins, dioxins, yum. How can you hide something that big in a city this small?"

The rapid change of subject nearly gave her whiplash. "Sorry, hide what?"

"The transmitter! Controlling every piece of plastic all over the world is beyond the Nestene Consciousness unaided, so it needs a transmitter to boost the signal. Something round, massive, slap-bang in the middle of London. A huge, metal, circular, dish-like structure, like a wheel, radical, close to where we're standing." And with that, he came to stand directly in front of the London Eye, all lightened up with white and blue lights. "Must be completely invisible."

She stared. Experiencing this once didn't spare her the absurdity of this moment.

He stared back. "What?"

She raised her eyebrows, signaling him to look behind. "If I wasn't still in shock, this would be quite funny."

He turned and looked. Turned back. Still didn't get it. "What?"

If she raised her eyebrows any higher they would be lost in her hairline. "Okay, it's still funny."

He turned again. Turned back. "What is it? What?"

She busted out laughing. "Oh, I've missed you," then went off to look for the man-hole she noticed last time. From the corner of her eye, she saw the oblivious Doctor turned back one last time and blurted out, "Oh, fantastic!"

She just couldn't help her smile.

* * *

The meeting with the Nestene Consciousness went almost exactly as she remembered. The Doctor started negotiation with the plastic creature with suitable seriousness, ruined it with an inappropriate joke, then whipped back to being deadly serious like he was bipolar. Meanwhile she located Mickey cowering in a corner. (It was funny how he managed to make a straight corridor seem like a corner with his cowering. Nothing like the Torchwood-Mickey she got to know.) She swanned up to him, still in the dreamlike trance she'd fallen into in her shock, and didn't even get annoyed when he hugged her legs like she was a lifeline, stammering about the talking plastic. If anything, she only got even more amused, which she knew was not a suitable reaction to the situation where the whole of the human race is at risk. Though in her defense, that _was_ the conditioned reaction to this kind of things when one had travelled long enough with the Doctor.

She still ended up rescuing the Doctor with her rusty gymnastic skills. (She went back to practicing, back in the other universe, but it seemed to her much younger body she still stopped years ago.) With a manic smile, and a "Now we're in trouble!" like it was Christmas, he rushed all three of them into the TARDIS to escape the exploding vat of plastic. And that was where the familiarity ended, and Rose Tyler crashed back down to Earth.


	2. More Questions than Answers

**Disclaimer:** Nothing you recognise belongs to me. Any remaining spelling mistake belongs to my beta-reader **SakataTetsuya**.

* * *

It was the sudden telepathic contact with the TARDIS that jarred her out of her trance. The connection to a full-grown TARDIS that had been around longer than she could ever phantom was nothing a shallow empathic link to a baby TARDIS before her first flight could had prepared Rose for. Waves and waves of _'Welcome back!' 'Wolf, you're back!'_ and _'Oooh, Wolf Wolf Wolf tell my Thief not to hit me with the mallet anymore he's mean!'_ assaulted her, literally staggering. The Doctor startled when she swooned, but still caught her. Niceee Doctor. Useless old-Mickey.

"You OK, Rose?" he asked worriedly. The Doctor, that was. Not Mickey, he was still useless.

"Don't hit her with the mallet anymore. She hates that," she moaned but still passed the words. "And tell her to shut up, she's giving me a headache."

"She? What she?" came the bewildered question.

"The TARDIS." But the headache had already eased. The ship sent her the last wave of sheepishness and withdrew until there was only the familiar humming at the back of her mind. She breathed out a sigh of relief.

"Right, of course you talk to my TARDIS too." So maybe the relief was premature. "Anything else you want to tell me about? Beside being telepathic and possibly from my personal future and somehow is _still_ the Rose Tyler I met this morning who was neither?"

"Can we please not do this right now?" she pleaded futilely. And oh look, the headache was back.

"What? Saving the world's not urgent enough for you?" It was remarkable how fast he could change from concerned to confrontational. Had he been this bipolar the first time around and she'd somehow forgotten? "You told me to get my priorities straight, well now that all the stupid apes are safe from an alien invasion maybe it's time to get to the possible paradox that can, oh I don't know, destroy the whole universe?!"

"Don't shout at me!" she shouted back. "It's not my fault!"

"Would you two both stop shouting and explain what the hell is going on?!"

Both she and the Doctor startled. Standing there was Mickey, trying his best to stand tall and intimidate them despite his still shaking voice and trembling legs. The silence was deafening.

* * *

The first sign that something was wrong with Rose Tyler was how she reacted to the TARDIS. In all fairness, it didn't hit the Doctor just then. Speechlessness and denial didn't seem unreasonable when one suddenly came face-to-face with something that broke all their previous notions of what was physically possible, and a dimensionally transcendent alien ship certainly qualified. It only registered, really registered, when she named the TARDIS before he did. Looking back now, he had to wonder what exactly had caused that reaction when she and the ship were apparently well-acquainted enough that _his_ TARDIS telepathically complained to _her_ about _him,_ of all things _._

And then, just in case he somehow forgot about that incident, she then proceeded to make all kinds of slip-ups all night long. Knowing the boy was kept alive when even _he_ hadn't been sure, going straight for the Consciousness's hideout without having to look for it, _'Oh, I've missed you'_ spoken with fondness? She was all but yelling she was from his personal future!

And yet it didn't make sense! She was still the Rose Tyler he saw this morning, hell, half an hour ago! So _maybe_ he took his eyes off her for a few seconds, but he would have still noticed if she had been switched with an older version. And yet her clothes were the same, her hair was the same length as before, hell she still had the baby fat! His next theory would have been a mind-transplant, likely psychograft, except a mind in a foreign body would not have working telepathy!

So _maybe_ he had been very confused and slightly freaked out at the possible existence of a universe-ending paradox. And he might had got a bit shouty. Thus forgot that there was still another stupid ape presented. And got shocked into silence when that stupid ape unexpectedly joint in the shouting contest.

"Right," the reminder seemed to also take the wind right out of Rose Tyler's sail. "Sorry, Mickey."

"What's going on, Rose?" The boy pleaded with her. The Doctor would had thought he was capitalizing on her compassion, except the boy seemed genuinely lost. Quite pathetic, but the Doctor didn't voice that thought, since it seemed she was going to explain after all.

"Right," she repeated with a sigh. "It's a long story, so first off, no interruption." He quickly raised his hands in surrender when she glared at him. "And second, I may not have every answer. I'm still quite confused myself."

"How to say this?" she pulled the boy down to sit leaning on the railing, then spoke with her eyes fixed on the ceiling. "Right, like they said, start at the beginning. My name is Rose Tyler, human. I was born in 1986 to Jackie and Peter Tyler. For nineteen years, I was nothing special. Just a normal girl living the only life she ever knew, struggled day by day with everyday things like work and food and sleep. Then one day she ran into trouble, not the everyday kind, and someone took her hand and told her one word, just one word. 'Run.' She did, and then just never stopped running."

She looked up at him then. "That someone was an alien who travelled time and space. He called himself 'The Doctor', and he saved her life and she saved his. Then he asked her to come and see the universe with him, and she said no even when her heart shouted 'Yes,' cos she still had her Mum and a boyfriend to look after. She regretted it immediately when he took off, and for about a minute there she thought she had made the biggest mistake of her life. Then he came back and asked her again. _'By the way, did I mention it also travels in time?'_ " Rose quoted with a beatific smile. The look she gave him was fond and loaded with something he couldn't name, didn't dare to name. "This time there was no hesitation. She ran to him and never looked back."

Then abruptly, her face closed off. "I travelled with you for two years before we were separated. I learnt much during that time, so even when I came back to Earth, it was never the same as before. Kept on doing what I've learned to do. To not give up, not just let things happen. Make a stand. Say no. That was when I gained empathy; apparently I'd always been a bit empathic before, but an… incidence… gave it a boost. Not sure about the telepathy, that part was new. I was helping to defend the Earth. And then, just when I thought I got it, that I've figured out my life, that life just… disappeared, and I found myself back to where I started. The very first time I step foot on the TARDIS."

She was getting more and more worked up, but he still had to ask. "What happened?"

"I don't know! Things were fine, I checked, everything was fine, and then suddenly there was the alarm and shaking and-"

She cut off so abruptly that he was startled. Her eyes widened.

"I bet she knows."

"She? Who's she?" he asked, bewildered. And then was hit with the strongest sense of déjà vu. But she was no longer talking to him.

"That was you, wasn't it?" she shouted to the ceiling, jumped up and paced as she got more and more agitated. "You must have been involved somehow. My very first trip-. And you _know_ me even when for all intents and purposes I'm reliving my own timeline. And _him!_ God, I can't believe I nearly forgot! _'Emergency Program One'?_ Don't even try to defend him, I know his voice! And that was _just_ like him too! _'Rose Tyler's just a child, she can't be trusted to make her own decisions!'_ That high-handed, interfering-"

"Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose!" the boy – Rickey? – jumped up to sooth her while the Doctor watched, speechless. "Calm down, sweetheart. There, there. It's ok, just calm down. Whatever it is, we'll fix it, yeah? You and me?"

Rose broke down crying, still hyperventilating after her fit, but noticeably calmer after a few minute of Rickey's gentle soothing. The Doctor thought he might just have to revive his thought on the boy. Maybe not so pathetic after all.

"So himself over there is really an alien?" Rickey asked Rose, still holding and patting, likely trying to distract her. It worked, and she gave out a tearful giggle and raised herself to whisper something into his ear. The boy raised an eyebrow questioningly, surprised, and she answered with a nod. "So Doctor, if you're an alien, how come you sound like you're from the North?"

"Lots of planets have a North!" the Doctor answered defensively, then got really confused when Rose broke out laughing. Ah, something he must have said the first time around then. Still, he didn't mind being laughed at much, as Rose seemed to have come back to normal. He let the domestic continue for another minute before trying to get back to topic.

"So you know who was responsible then?"

"Well," she turned back to face him, absently wiping away the last tears. "I think so? Except there was nothing in the… nothing presented at the time was supposed to have the ability to make me relive my timeline. I crossed my own timeline before, but it was nothing like this. In fact, I didn't think _this_ was possible."

"Neither did I," he said almost to himself. Crossing one's own timeline is one thing. It has been done before, frequently, although always it carries the risk of making a disastrous paradox. But _reliving_ it? Make the already established timeline just – _vaporized –_ and make a new one? Even the Time Lords never managed anything like that or the Time War would not had ended the way it did _– Don't think about it, just don't. –_ A literal second chance.

The thought was so tempting, he had to viciously shook his head to get it out of his mind. "Right, I've checked for the signs of a paradox, but there just doesn't seem to be one, so I think we're safe for now. Let's get you two back home."

* * *

He managed to land in his distracted state surprisingly without any incidence. There were just too many things on his mind, that when the door opened to let the humans out he was almost at the lost at what to do. Apparently they were too, because for a minute they just stood there, looking through the open TARDIS doors to the empty alley outside without doing or saying anything. Finally he had to break the silence.

"Well, off you pop then. Got to check on something. Go on. Go home." He told them and make the shooing motion. Rickey finally moved and got out like he was in a daze, but Rose stopped at the door and looked back at him. Something must have showed in that look, because he found himself saying as if in response to a question. "Don't worry, just have to do a bit of research. Have a few theories I have to check out. I'll be back, maybe in the morning?"

That must have satisfied her, because next thing he knew, he was alone again in the TARDIS. The Doctor quickly put the ship back in the Time Vortex. He had much to think about.


	3. Where do We Go from Here?

**Disclaimer:** Nothing you recognize belongs to me. Special thanks for my beta-readers **SakataTetsuya** and **Thaila**. Any remaining mistake belongs to them.

* * *

The walk back to Rose's flat was silent. She could hardly believe she was walking _away_ from the TARDIS, from the Doctor. It just seemed so wrong. This was supposed to be the night she say _'Screw everything'_ and start travelling with him, get into troubles all over time and space, go missing for a year and get both herself and the Doctor in trouble with her Mum. She had never regret it, this night. Despite all the heartaches that follow, in all those years when she was missing the Doctor, she had never even _imagined_ re-doing it. It had gone so _right_ the first time. And now she had screwed it up.

"So, in the future," Mickey spoke up, startlling her out of her thoughts, "will we still be together?"

"Oh, Mick." She said with a sigh and a helpless smile. She had missed him, her Mickey. He had grown up so much, in the year when she was still looking for a way to return, and even before that. She still saw that man in him even now, her best friend, the one she could trust to understand her without her saying a word.

Like he did now.

"Yeah, thought so." He didn't even break his strikes, just looked down a bit. "I saw the way you looked at him, back there. Just can't compete with all time and space, I guess."

"It's not that, Mick." She couldn't help but wanting to fix it, him looking so desolated. "Yes, I loved the Doctor. Maybe I still do. But it wasn't cos he was better than you. It was never that."

"Then what?" His voice was tinted with desperation. It broke her heart. "You just told me you ran away with him. After knowing him just for a day, and you left me and Jackie and you just ran away. Why would you, Rose? Why would you do that?"

"Because it wasn't enough," she said helplessly. "This life, this estate life, it wasn't enough. And I don't just mean for me, but for you too. Even my Mum changed after he came into our lives. We all wanted something more, something meaningful, and he showed us that life."

"All our lives, we were taught to keep our heads down. To content with what we have, cos we would never have it any better, _be_ any better, amount to anything else. What we had, Mick, you and I, was comfortable, safe, but we both wanted more, _deserved_ more, we just didn't know it. So when we got the chance, we grew up. We didn't grow apart, Mick, we grew into ourselves. Grew up to not need someone else to be safe, to feel comfortable standing on our own."

She smiled at him, seeing that even if he was still grudging to admit the truth of her words, there was yearning in his eyes for what he was only now envisioning.

"When I stopped travelling and settled down protecting the Earth, you were my second in command. Your skills with the computer were a godsend in information gathering, and I'd always trusted you to have my back. We worked together as the top team in that organization for two years until you broke away to find your own path. Last I heard, before I came back, you'd found someone else. I was so happy for you."

"I was happy with you," he protested, but it was weak, so she didn't try to push.

"So is this you breaking up with me then?" he asked after a while, sounding lighthearted enough to be more joking than accusing. "When himself comes back in the morning, are you going to leave with him?"

The answer that came up, just spilt out of her mouth without going to her brain first, pulled her to a stop. "I don't know."

* * *

"All right, spill."

The TARDIS answered the Doctor's demand with a wave of innocence. If there had been any doubt about her involvement, they had just been put to rest.

"Oi, don't give me that! You are _my_ timeship, you're not supposed to _do_ things like interfering with space-time without my approval, let alone do it and then _not_ telling me about it! _Especially_ if it concerns who was apparently my future Companion! Since when do you care about my Companions anyway?"

The ship sent him a wave of _closeness_ and what he could only call _sistership,_ and then stubbornness and chastisement _._ Apparently she _really_ loved Rose Tyler and disliked him letting her leave. At times like this he hated the fact that his telepathy had weakened severely in this body. Sure, it was probably a defense mechanism so that he was not driven insane by the silence in his head, but it made arguing with his ship a real hassle.

If only to rebuke the rebelling ship, he said. "I'm not going to invite her."

Annoyed. Scolding.

"So what if she's clever and witty and meant for more than her current life? That doesn't mean I have to take her with me! She'd probably be better off away from me anyway."

 _"_ _He saved her life and she saved his. Then he asked her to come and see the universe with him, and she said no even when her heart shouted 'Yes.'"_

"And that's the thing," he willfully misinterpreted the memory the ship called up. "She said no. She still has her Mum and her boyfriend. I don't ask twice. I never ask twice."

 _"_ _There was no hesitation. She ran to him and never looked back."_

This time the memory came with an image. The wistful look when Rose told her story, the fondness in her eyes, the way she lit up with remembered happiness. He swallowed heavily and tried to banish the thought of what they all meant.

"Fine. Fine." He snapped at the insistent ship. "I'll ask her in the morning. But only once! If she refuses then that's it. I don't ask twice."

Smugness.

"But if she liked it so much," he couldn't help but ask himself. "Then why did she stop?"

* * *

It wasn't actually the next morning that he came back for Rose Tyler. Well, for her it was, but for him it had been months. Months of running around from archive to archive, visiting every library in the universe that had information on time travel in order to unravel what exactly had happened, if it was going to have catastrophic consequences later that he would have to deal with. Or at least, that was his excuse. All the while the TARDIS kept grumbling at him to go back, nothing was wrong, nothing to worry about, just go back. At last, he relented, if only to shut her up.

(It wasn't. He was curious about Rose Tyler too.)

She stepped in almost the moment the door opened, hand automatically began stroking a coral. He was going to say 'hi', but then someone else came through the door. Her boyfriend Rickey.

"Oi, what're you doing here?" He couldn't help but feel affronted, despite there being no reason for it.

"Checking if it was all a dream," the boy shrugged at him. "Just my luck it wasn't. There really is an alien with a spaceship trying to steal my girlfriend."

"So, last night," Rose cut in before he could say anything in response, likely an insult. Or denial. "My Mum was at the shopping centre. She saw the dummies move a bit, but just for a few seconds or so before they stopped. Guess we cut off the signal early this time. There were no casualty. She thought it was a show they put on to lure in customers. Kept talking about it all night."

"There were casualties last time?" He asked, alarmed.

"Yeah, a few." She bit her lips, eyes far away. "They were activated for a few minutes last time. Got guns in the fingers of their hands, shot some people. I didn't know about it until years later though. Ran away with you during the fall-out."

"Well, just be glad no one's harmed this time then." He tried to banish the guilty look from her eyes and pushed down the panic realization that he likely didn't know about the casualties last time either, if he ran away right afterward. All those people he couldn't save, and didn't even know about. _"This time no one died,"_ he tried to console himself. It didn't work.

"On the bright side," he said loudly and intentionally brightly, "it proves that you being here can actually change the timeline without bringing down the Reapers. Wonderful news, especially if you still want to travel with me. What do you say?"

"Yeah," for some reasons she hesitated, "about that…"

Whatever she intended to say was lost, as right that moment, the TARDIS decided to act up. The ship began rocking, throwing everyone off their feet, and the engine started up without his instruction and pulled them all into flight with the familiar groaning.

"No, no, no, no, no, what are you doing?!" the Doctor shouted, dashed up to the console and tried to take back control. Rose began to laugh.

"Rose, what's it doing?" came Rickey's voice behind him.

"I think," laughed Rose hectically, "I think she's kidnapping us. We're being kidnapped."


	4. The Long Song

**Disclaimer:** You know the drill.

 **Beta-readers:** SakataTetsuya & Thaila

 **AN:** What? You didn't _really_ expect me to follow canon storyline, did you?

* * *

It was one thing for a Time Lord to fail his driving test and occasionally (read: frequently) land his timeship where and when he did not intend. It was another for his timeship to act up and _fly herself_ even when he didn't want her to. And it was another kind of embarrassing _entirely_ for the ship to do all that in order to help her pilot entice a Companion! He was never going to mention this incident to anyone. Never ever.

"Sooo," Rose asked after the ship had landed, "where and when did she take us?"

It was the excitement in her voice and the bounce in her steps that stopped him from just reversing the fly path in a fit of spite. Maybe letting the ship win just this once wouldn't be so bad.

He steadfastly ignored the smugness in the TARDIS's hum.

"Boy, she _really_ wants to impress you." He whistled when he looked at the monitor.

"What is it? What's out there?" She was all but vibrating now, her smile stretched wide.

"Something fantastic!"

* * *

"Welcome to the Rings of Akhaten."

The sight before her was amazing. Even after all she had seen, both with the Doctor and after him, the sight of rings and rings of asteroid slowly making their way around their red sun as if in a synchronized dance still fascinated her. For a moment she forgot how to breathe.

"Seven worlds orbiting the same stars, all bursting with life. And in, hold on, five, four, three, two,…"

A large asteroid moved to reveal another smaller one with what looked like a golden pyramid on it, gleaming gently where it caught the sunlight.

"The Pyramid of the Rings of Akhaten. The holy site for the Sun-singers of Akhet. The habitants of all those seven worlds share amongst themselves the belief that life, all life throughout the universe, originated there, on that planet."

"And is that true?"

"Well, that's what they choose to believe. Even got a religion dedicated to it. Mind you, it's a good bedtime story. Certainly makes one feel like the centre of the universe."

She pushed at him for that, yet still couldn't stop grinning. "Oi, shut up, that's rude."

"Oh. My. God."

Mickey's voice ruined the mood. For a moment she didn't know if she wanted to hug him for it or kill him.

"We're… We're in space!"

"Yes, thank you, Captain Obvious." The Doctor's voice was dry enough to shame most deserts.

"Is there air out here? How are we breathing?" Mickey was sounding panicky now. She wondered if he was going to faint. Torchwood-Mickey might have been tough enough to handle hostile aliens and space robots, but she wasn't as sure about this one. She decided to just ignore him unless he really fainted.

"Can we get closer? Give us a look?"

In response, the Doctor took her hand and gave a bow like a showman. "Your wish is my command."

* * *

The delighted laughter and honest fascination Rose showed when facing an alien culture reminded the Doctor of why he tended to travel the stars with a companion. Even now, when he was jaded and decidedly no longer innocent, he still found her joy infectious.

If only they hadn't had a tag-along.

"Oh my God, they're aliens! Rose, they're actual, honest-to-God aliens!"

"Yes, yes, I know," came Rose's distracted response. "Don't point at them though, in some places it's considered a criminal offence."

"Oh?" he piqued up, interested. "You've been to Azabaa 2?"

"Yup," she popped. "That whole system was so easily offended. I think you and I made it in and out of their prisons half a dozen times before we managed to take off."

"You've been in prison?!" inserted Rickey, scandalized.

"Oh, lots and lots of time," she chirped. It was reassuring to know that his possible Companion was as nonchalant as he was about getting into trouble, considering all the troubles he got into without even trying.

"Aren't there a lot of different species around here though? Normally I can tell the local species just by looking for the highest number of similar-looking individuals, but this lot seems to be as diverse as it could get."

"Good question," the Doctor made a show of looking at his watch. "Oh! It seems we arrived at a great time. It's the Festival of Offerings."

Rose pulled at Rickey to get him to stop gawking and start moving. "And what's that?"

"Well, every thousand years or so all the rings align and the habitants of all the worlds in the system gather here to celebrate. It's quite a big thing, locally. Like Tuesday."

"You mean like Tuesday if it only came every thousand years."

"Got it in one," he beamed at her.

"So is it this crowded because the population of seven worlds is all gathered here or is it just because it's a market place?"

"Both, I should think," he snatched up a sort-of-fruit on a stand, scanned it with the screwdriver, then gently put it back down. "Feel free to buy souvenir, just let me scan it first, some of these might be a mite toxic for humans."

"How?" And it seemed Rickey-boy's brain had finished rebooting. "We don't have their money on us. Or do they accept the pound too?"

"Don't be silly," he scoffed. "Why would they use human money? No, this lot deal in sentiments."

"What?" even Rose sounded shocked.

"Objects of sentimental value. Photographs, love letters, etcetera etcetera. The more well-loved, the higher the value. Basically it's psychometry. Objects psychically imprinted with their history. That's what they use for currency around here. Makes much more sense than using bits of paper with faces on them."

"Well, I have nothing like that on me," said Rose.

"So you're dirt-poor. No shopping for you."

"Doesn't stop me from looking though. Common, Mickey."

And off she went, without letting him get a word in edgewise. Apparently he never told her not to wander off during their travel. Oh well, if she had been with him for two years, he supposed she knew what she was doing. Probably.

* * *

He found her again fifteen minutes later back where he parked the TARDIS, and was surprisingly unsurprised to find that during that time she had somehow managed to cosy up with the central figure of the whole festival, the Queen of Years. They were both huddling behind the TARDIS, chattering away like they'd known each other forever, with Rickey standing nearby looking like he didn't know what he was doing there. Actually, that was how he knew they were there at all.

"A word for the wise, Rose, next time you intend to hide, don't make Rickey your lookout."

The little girl startled and started to edge away, but Rose calmed her with just a touch on her wrist. Then she turned and grinned brilliantly at him.

"Hi, Doctor. Have you met Merry Gejelh? Merry, this is my friend the Doctor. Doctor, did you know that Merry here knows _every single_ story and song and chronicle in all of Akhaten's history?"

"Really? Every single one?" He raised his eyebrow and acted impressed, and was satisfied when the girl relaxed. A child being afraid of him, no matter what the reason, made him severely uncomfortable.

"Yes. I was telling Rose about the story of the thief who once broke into the Temple."

"Oh. Is that why you're hiding then? Play out the story?"

"Nah," Rose answered, stroking the girl's head, "we were just playing hide and seek. But I think it's fine to come out now. Right, Merry?"

"Yes," the girl looked like she would be beaming if she hadn't been taught to keep decorum all her life. "I'm ready." Then she took a deep breath and walked out to the alley, where two adult sun-singers immediately found her and led her away.

"What was that about?" the Doctor asked Rose when the girl was out of earshot.

"She's got to sing in front of people of seven worlds, in a festival that only comes about every thousand years. She's got performance anxiety."

"So what did you do?"

"Distracted her."

He contemplated that for a minute, then said, "Good idea. Well done."

Rose beamed like he'd just given her the stars.

* * *

For all the pep talk Rose gave herself about refusing the Doctor's offer the night before, she was enjoying this unplanned trip a mite too much. She had honestly intended to just pop in and maybe give the Doctor all the relevant information to save more lives for when he find himself in places he had came with her to last time, as long as he confirmed it wouldn't cause a paradox, and then go back to her life, maybe do some independent investigating on the side like Sarah Jane. As painful as the thought of willingly separating herself from the Doctor was, she had really planned on doing it. Facing the man who had and at the same time had not broken her heart cannot be healthy for her. And yet again, the decision was taken out of her hands.

(At least this time it wasn't him who did it.)

(And she wasn't even that angry at the TARDIS anyway.)

This trip, though, was chipping away at her resolve. She had missed all this, the wonders, the vastness, the beauty of the universe. Sitting there listening to the choir with Merry's young and high voice in the lead, it was everything that she had loved and lost. Well, minus the troubles and the running for her life.

Suddenly the song cut off, the ground trembled, and Merry looked back at her, eyes filled with terror.

She should _really_ stop thinking things like that.


	5. The Lonely God

**Beta-reader:** SakataTetsuya & Thaila

* * *

"And here it comes."

That was all the warning the Doctor got before Rose threw herself out of her seat and ran to the platform where Merry was standing, held onto the girl's arm like her life depended on it. It took him another moment to see the glow of the tractor beam out to take the girl to the Temple. By that point it was too late to reach for them by hand, so he didn't even try, just pulled Rickey along from where the boy had been standing with his mouth open. And of course the boy had to protest.

"Wait, what about Rose? We can't just leave her!"

"We're not leaving anybody, now move along!"

It took some tugging and a bit of mental effort to ignore the boy's rambling, but he made it back to the market place within no time at all. Luckily enough, the stand where he thought he saw a moped for hire earlier was still open. The Tiannamatan vendor was still there though, so he couldn't just make off with it. Had to do this the honest way then.

"What's you doing?" Rickey demanded when he started looking through his pockets.

"Looking for something to trade. We need to rent that moped." He pulled out a trinket that had been in the coat pocket for who know how long and presented it to the vendor. She barked at him.

"What do you mean it's not enough? Come on, it's at least three hundred years old!"

She growled at him. Right, must have sentimental value. The only thing he got in hand that qualified would be his screwdriver, and he would need that later.

Desperate times.

"Rickey, you have anything on you? A photo, jewellery, anything?"

"No, nothing. And my name's Mickey." Rickey replied. Well, it was a long shot-

"Wait, no, I've got something," the boy pulled out his wallet and opened it. "Will this do?" He presented something inside to the vendor. Given the grabbing motion she made, it was enough. Rickey quickly pulled it out and nearly tossed it to her, and they both got onto the moped.

"What was that anyway?" the Doctor couldn't help but ask.

"A photo of my grans," came the answer. "She was the one who basically raised me. Passed away three years ago."

"Sorry for your loss." So maybe the boy had something in him after all. "Now, hold on!"

* * *

They didn't catch up with Rose in time and she got pulled into the inner chamber along with the Queen of Years. The door gave him quite a lot of trouble, but he was a Time Lord, so within minutes it was open.

He would have appreciated it if Rose hadn't been having an argument with the girl and had left right away so he wouldn't had to hold the heavy door, but of course nothing was that easy. The girl persisted that she had to be sacrificed to the mummy in the temple to satisfy her God, while Rose, bless her kind heart, insisted the girl get out. All the while an adult sun-singer kept repeating a line of his song like a broken record and ignored all of them.

When the girl used her psychic power to subdue Rose though, the Doctor had enough. He turned off the screwdriver and snuck into the chamber, Rickey following and barely making it through without getting crushed. Right, he'd got two companions this time. For some reason he kept forgetting Rickey was there.

"Put her down, please." He said to the girl, rather politely. Well-meaning or not, he disliked seeing Rose incapacitated like that. It called to the Oncoming Storm in him.

Hesitantly, the girl obeyed.

"Please, you've got to leave, or He'll eat us all!"

"Well, too late for that," Rose answered, "considering the Doctor had just locked us in. Seriously, what were you thinking?"

"That if there's a way in, there's a way out," he said.

"Well, there might not be this time." Despite her words, Rose still didn't seem afraid.

The Doctor made his way to the sun-singer. Despite the racket they made, he was still singing.

"I'd give it up if I were you. That one's really determined to wake up. Your song won't cut it."

As if in response, the sun-singer fell silence mid-sentence. The chamber felt even more oppressive than before without the desperate song. He stood up and faced the Doctor. The look in his eyes made something click in place.

"Oh. Oh, I've got it now."

"My name if Chorister Rezh Baphix, and the Long Song ended with me." The sun-singer announced, then pressed something on his bracelet. And just like that, he disappeared.

* * *

"So," it was Rose who broke the silence. "I'm smelling a set up. Does it seem like a set up to you?"

"Of course it was a set up," the Doctor answered, furious. "This whole thing was planned from the beginning. They knew the Old God, the Grandfather, was waking up, and hungry, so what do they do? They set up a little girl as a meal, and it's feeding time!"

As if on cue, the figure in the glass box opened its eyes and began snarling, banging on the glass to get out.

"So it's not my fault?" the girl was terrified, but still she asked. "I didn't do anything wrong? I didn't wake Grandfather?"

"No, Merry, it wasn't your fault," Rose immediately tried to comfort the girl, "and we won't let you pay for it. Can the three of us hold it off, Doctor?"

He changed a setting on his screwdriver, pressed it to thicken the glass and buy them more time. "For a while, yes, but it's not its physical strength we've got to be scared of."

"Then what? Cos that thing's scary enough as it is," inserted Rickey.

"Well, that thing's a psychic vampire. It won't eat our meat. It wants our souls."

"Souls aren't real," came Rose.

"Our life stories, Rose, those're our souls. Things we love, things we've lost, all our accomplishments, all our regrets. Everything that make us us. Children have pure souls, that's why she was chosen."

The girl looked like she wanted to cry, but didn't. "He chose me. A God chose me."

"He's not a god, Merry," Rose took the girl's trembling shoulders. "If he is what the Doctor says he is, then he is just a parasite who preys on your people. That doesn't make him a god. Just a very despicable being."

"So if I don't let him eat me," she choked up, "no one will be hurt? You promise?"

"On my life," the Doctor said. The girl nodded.

"Ok," Rose picked up the conversation, "so now comes the part where we get the hell out of here. How do we get out? Doctor, can you open the door again?"

"Not from the inside. The door's specifically meant to keep things inside from breaking out."

"Ok, so we're stuck. Just perfect."

And of course, when it rained, it poured. The temple trembled.

"Oh Gods, I forgot about the Vigil," cried the girl.

"And the Vigil is, what?"

"If the Queen of Years is unwilling to be feasted upon… it's their job to feed her to Grandfather."

"Right, of course it is."

"Wait, wait, wait." Came Rickey. "Earlier, Merry was telling you about a thief-"

"-who broke into the Temple and then made it out! Merry, do you remember how?"

"There's… there's a secret song."

"And that's our last hope right now. Please, Merry!"

The girl sang, her voice steady enough despite being terrified. A door opened up, to all of their relief. And just in time too, as three figures chose that moment to appear.

They legged it out the door. Behind them, the Vigil stiffened then disappeared. The vampire smashed the glass, then suddenly slumped over like a puppet with its strings cut.

"So…" Rose drawled out. "Does anyone think that was too easy?"

Something in the Doctor wanted to whimper at those words. The rest joined in when the sun rumbled as if to answer her.

* * *

"I think… I might have made a mistake."

The Doctor's words brought Rose absolutely no surprise. It was just the kind of day they were having.

"Dare I take a wild guess that THAT thing is the real Old God? Not the thing in the glass box?"

"I think you might be right. Rose, Rickey, take Merry back to the planet."

"Yeah, no. Mickey, you take Merry back. I'll stay with the Doctor."

"For all the stars, Rose! That thing's a psychic vampire, a really powerful one! I'm a Time Lord, I'm trained to take fights like this, but your mind's wide open!"

Rose hesitated. In the end, Mickey chose for her, shuffling all three of them onto the moped and rode back to the planet. Looking back, Rose saw the Doctor standing tall, shifted his jacket, then re-entered the temple. Too late, she realized she knew that posture.

"That's not fighting. That's dying. He's planning to die."

* * *

This should not be as familiar as it was. Him acting out a suicidal plan, her scrambling to get him out of it alive. Sadly, it was the way their lives tended to play out, both last time and this time.

"I'm going after him."

"What? Rose, no!" Mickey protested. "Just leave him, he's got it under control!"

"No he hasn't." Her voice was still calm, all the years of keeping a clear head in danger helping her to keep from screaming and lashing out. She got onto the moped and turned it back toward the Temple.

"Rose, please." Merry touched her hand and somehow stilled her. Maybe it was because of the pleading in the little girl's voice, the way she was so scared but still trying to be brave, that made Rose turn back to face the crowd.

"That man, out there, is trying to save you from your so called God. He's standing there, risking his life for a glimmer of a chance to save you all from a being you're so scared of, so terrified of, that you had been singing your songs and feeding your children to it for millions of year, just to keep it asleep. How much more, huh? How much more would you sacrifice to it, just to keep your cosy little lives? How much longer would you avert your eyes and turn your ears to those sacrifices just to keep from looking at it head on, seeing it for what it really is, just in case you can't live with yourselves anymore if you do? Well, it doesn't matter any longer, does it, because you're looking at it now."

"And I hope you all can live with yourselves."

* * *

She found him on his knees. Despite all the noises she made coming in, he barely raised his head to look at her. She knew his hair-brained scheme immediately.

"Oh my God did you just feed yourself to it? Damn it Doctor, that thing's a billions of years old _star_! Your nine-hundred's nothing compared to it!"

"Rose, get out" he breathed out.

"Nope, not without you, you suicidal idiot."

"You don't know what you're doing!"

"I know what _you'_ re doing! A bit hypocritical to not let me do the same, don't you think?"

"Rose, please, leave!" he tried to stand and failed miserably. "You're too young, it'll eat you all up in seconds!"

"Well that's seconds more you'll have then!" And with that, she stepped in between the Doctor and the creature.

Even prepared, the contact still hit her with the weight of a freight train. She gasped and nearly blacked out on the spot. For a moment she didn't know who she was, as the creature went through her memories and sucked up all that was precious to her.

"Please, please, Rose, stay back! Please, don't do this, Rose!" came the Doctor's pleas from somewhere far away. She wanted to reach for him, but her vision was dimming. Why did he sound so sad? She didn't want him sad.

"Please, take me, not her!" he was saying something, but she couldn't make it out. It was so dark…

* * *

 _"Rest now, my warrior."_

What came back first was sound. Someone was singing. The song soothed something in her that she hadn't realized was in pain.

 _"Rest now, your hardship is over."_

She was gaining strength. She was fighting something, for something precious. Something that the song was helping her protect.

 _"Live. Wake up."_

Others joined the song. She opened her eyes. When did she close them?

 _"Wake up."_

She stood up. The precious one was behind her, protected. The song blazed golden in her mind, pushing away the oppressing red.

 _"And let the cloak of life ~ cling to your bones."_

The gold was stronger now. Things started to make sense again. The red was struggling. It had never seen anything like her before.

 _"Cling to your bones."_

She turned back and looked at the precious one.

 _"Wake up."_

"Hello, my Doctor."

* * *

The Doctor would never admit it, but for those moments when Rose was lying there, her soul sucked up by the entity that was the sun, he had been terrified. Then came the song, and he gapped as Rose began to glow golden and stood back up. A nimbus of light surrounded her, and she shone as if lit from within.

"Hello, my Doctor."

"How are you doing that? How are you not dead?" That wasn't quite what he wanted to ask. It just stumbled out of his mouth.

Rose smiled, tongue in cheek.

"I'm not doing anything. It's just overreached itself."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you, it could eat up quite easily. But my story's a bit more complicated. I don't just have the nineteen years this body has."

"You're mentally older. Your timeline loped back upon itself."

"That's right. And not the way of simple time-traveling either. I have in my head a timeline that is irrevocably changed, a future that would never happen."

"Could-have-been and never-will-be," he breathed out. "Poisons to anything that eats timelines."

"Quite right too."

As one, they turned and watched as the creature seemed to fold back upon itself, and as the song rose into its crescendo and ended, so did it.

"Sometimes, Doctor," Rose murmured to him without taking her eyes off the sun's last moments, "you don't have to stand alone. Nor should you."

"Yes," he took her hand, "I'm starting to realize that."

* * *

"So that's done." He said when they came back to the TARDIS. The people of Akhaten were busy trying to figure out how their lives would be from now on, without the threat of a malevolent god hanging literally overhead. Also, without a sun. Still, they did give Rickey back his photo in gratitude for what they'd done, so no hard feeling there. "That was easy."

"You call _that_ easy?" protested Rickey. The Doctor ignored him.

"You'd be dead without me," Rose said.

"Yes. Yes I would. Thank you."

"And last night too, with the Nestene Consciousness."

"Yes. I'm only alive thanks to you." Getting too close to uncomfortable territory now.

"Right then," said Rose with a note of finality, "I suppose I should come along. If only to stop you from getting yourself killed. That is, if the offer's still open?"

"Yes," he was shocked. Rose had been doing that to him a lot lately. "Yes, of course it's still open. And you too." He nodded toward Rickey. "You did great out there. Want to come along?"

"No thanks," the boy shook his head so fast it was a wonder it didn't fall off. "If this is how dangerous it is with you, I want none of it."

"And the invitation's revoked," the Doctor said nonchalantly. As if he really wanted the boy along anyway. Even if he wasn't really as pathetic as previously thought.

Rose bit her lip distractingly as if holding back a laugh. "Just drop us off back home first, though. I still have to bring my stuffs if I'm going to travel with you long term."

"Right. Of course. London, Powel Estate, 2005, here we come."

This time the TARDIS obeyed him readily enough. He would have _words_ with her later.

"So how long has we been gone?" Rose asked when the engine died down and showed no sign of wanting to leave even after her boyfriend had gone outside.

"Oh, minutes. Hours at most." He looked at the sky. It seemed subtly different from what he remembered of that morning. "Probably hours. Wouldn't be any more than that though."

"Really?" She raised her eyebrow in challenge, her tongue poked out. "Because last time you said twelve hours and brought me back late."

"Couldn't be that late." He said and decidedly did _not_ think of his track record.

"Oh it was. Like… twelve months late."

"Rose! You've got to come and see this!" came Rickey's voice from outside before the Doctor could come up with a comeback. Curious, Rose ventured outside to see what he wanted.

"What the…?" came her loud exclaim. She then stormed back inside the TARDIS, waving some kind of poster in her hand and yelled at the ceiling.

"Really? Really?! Ooh, this is your doing, it must be! His driving simply cannot be this ridiculous _twice_!"

Confused and slightly wary now, the Doctor came to take a look at the poster in Rose hand. On it were the pictures of both Rose and Rickey, printed side-by-side, with the words "CAN YOU HELP?" in big red block letters.

"What?!"

The TARDIS laughed at them all.


	6. Family Reunions

**Beta-readers:** SakataTetsuya & Thaila

* * *

Funnily enough, it only took the Doctor freaking out and swearing (colourfully and in several languages, most of which didn't sound human) at the TARDIS for fifteen minutes straight for Rose to regain her calm. During her years of leading the most efficient response team of Torchwood, she had taken the lead while others panicked so many times that it was second nature to her now. So after just a deep breath to clear her head, she spoke in voice as calm as she could manage.

"Doctor, what's the date?"

"What does it matter?" said Mickey bitterly. "It's clear we've been gone for ages. Suppose your Mum's gone and told everyone I killed you or something by now."

Given her Mum's action the last time this happened, that wasn't an unreasonable assumption. She ignored him.

"Doctor, talk to me. I assume we're part of the events now and you cannot just fix the coordinate to drop us off at the right time anymore?"

"Yeah, no, I can't." Her reasonable voice must have calmed him enough to stop swearing. "The moment you saw that poster it was fixed. I'm sorry, Rose, really, I am."

"It's ok, Doctor. But the TARDIS did this on purpose. Last time I thought it was an accident, but to make the same mistake twice? I need the date, the exact date."

He looked at her for a few seconds, then shifted to check the monitor. "Sixteen of March, 2006."

"We've been gone for twelve months," Mickey said, but Rose was too busy checking her memory to take notice.

"It's the same day. The exact same day."

"Rose?" asked the Doctor confusedly.

"Right." She exhaled. "We've got work to do."

* * *

"So these… Slitheens, they tried to invade us by faking an alien invasion?"

"No, Mick, they don't want to invade. They're just out to make a profit."

"But… putting the whole planet on red alert, how was that gonna help?"

"Because that's the thing with you humans. You get scared, you lash out."

The Doctor ground his teeth. It hadn't taken Rose re-telling the whole thing for him to get the picture. The plan was so simple it was brilliant. Give the planet a scare, rouse them up a little, add a spark and then sit back to watch as the human race bring about their own demise. After that it was just the matter of gathering what was left and selling it to the highest bidder. Such genius.

It made him sick.

It seemed Rose was quite in tune with his moods, or just really used to him, because she quickly went to him and calmed him down with just a touch on his arm.

"It's ok, Doctor, it hasn't happened yet. There's still time to stop it. And if we do it right we can stop the fiasco that happens in Cardiff later this year too."

"Right, how do you propose we do that?" Since Rose was the most knowledgeable in this situation, it was natural to turn to her for suggestions. It didn't even hurt his normally sizable ego. Seemed he still had a few war habits in him.

"The Slitheens are currently posing as official figures. I don't know exactly who, but they are quite easy to tell apart if you know what to look for. The compression technology they use to fit themselves into human skins is faulty, so they can only disguise themselves as people who are overweight, and there are regular gas exchanges which sound like farts and smell like bad breath. However rounding them all up can be difficult, cos I have no idea exactly how many of them there are. They will only congregate once the plan is well on its way, and by then it might be too late."

"So how did we do it last time?" Rickey asked, but the Doctor already had a conjecture of the answer. He _hated_ the fact that his mind was still so obviously in war mode.

"We launched a rocket at 10 Downing Street after they'd congregated there. With me and the Doctor still inside. Well, you did."

Rickey-boy's eyes went round and huge. "How did you escape?" Admittedly the Doctor wanted to ask the same.

"We didn't. Rode it out inside a cupboard. Apparently earthquake survival tricks work wonders in cases of rocket too."

"Well it's all very fascinating," the Doctor interrupted her before she could say anything even more shocking. It seemed this Companion of his was exceptionally jeopardy-friendly. "But circumstances will be different this time, the same tactic's unlikely to work. So how do we round them up, preferably _before_ they gather and kill all the alien experts in England? Idea?"

Rickey looked clueless. No surprise there. Rose looked thoughtful, which was promising, and yet for some reasons he didn't think he'd like whatever idea she was going to say.

"We can contact UNIT."

Damned his intuition. "I haven't worked with them for so long now. I doubt they'd recognise me."

"Meaning you've regenerated from then." And of _course_ she knew about regeneration. Was that the reason she stopped travelling with other-him? "I think they may just surprise you though. From what I know of UNIT in this time, the leader grew up listening to stories of your exploits. She might just take our information at face value if it comes from 'the Doctor'."

"Wait, hold on, what's UNIT?"

"United Nation Intelligence Taskforce. Basically they deal with aliens. I worked for them in the 60s. Keep up, Rickey."

"It's Mickey!"

Neither Rose nor the Doctor acknowledged him.

"It might not work."

"It just might. Scared of taking the chance, Doctor?"

She knew him too well. It was unfair, he hadn't had the time to know her yet.

"Fine," he would never admit he brooded. A little. "I'll contact UNIT."

"Good. Now comes the hard part."

"What hard part? I thought that was the whole plan!"

"That's the 'dealing with the aliens' plan. There's still another, more formidable opponent. Someone we _can't_ avoid facing."

"Ok, I'll bite, who?"

"My mother."

* * *

"I don't do domestic, Rose!"

Given that she was still on the phone with the leader of UNIT, Rose had good excuse to ignore the Doctor's whining. Secretly she _loved_ it. Give him an alien invasion and he wouldn't even blink. Actually he'd likely run right to them. Yet throw her Mum out there and he'd rather run to the other side of the universe. And given Kate Stewart's voice on the other end, she wasn't the only one amused.

"You might want to recruit the help of a Harriet Jones, currently MP for Flydale North," she kept her voice conversational. "She should be at 10 Downing Street by now, and she's trustworthy. That woman would lay down her own life for the people."

"Unusual for a politician," Kate replied. "We'll keep an eye out for her." A pause. "The information just came in. It seems an alien spaceship's just hit Big Ben."

"It's started then. Good luck."

"You too, Miss Tyler," this time Kate's voice was _definitely_ amused. "Sounds like you'll need it."

"Thanks," Rose grumbled. Ok, yes, the Doctor wasn't the only one in trouble with her Mum. Didn't have to rub it in.

"We'll stay in touch."

The phone disconnected.

"Ok, so," Rose took a fortifying breath. "Alien plot's dealt with. Now how do we break it to my Mum that I'm not dead and back?"

"Well, what did you do last time?" asked the Doctor. It was funny how both he and Mickey seemed to think of her repeating timeline as a cheat code for everything.

"I don't… remember, actually. Never really _told_ her I went off with an alien in his time-machine and he only brought me back late." – "Oi!" – "I think… yeah, I think Mickey broke that to her."

"What? What would I do that for?"

"Well, she… kind of accused you of murdering me," she said, cringing, "and she spread some rumours, so when you heard I'd come back you weren't really in the mood to guard your words. And I think she got the picture when she saw the TARDIS materializing and dematerializing right in front of her."

"Great!" said the Doctor while Mickey gaped. "Let's do that then!"

"Not a good idea. She… well, she freaked out and called the alien helpline."

The Doctor was speechless, which normally Rose would have crow over, but this time she was too busy being mortified. Her Mum was really a special breed, even in the other timeline when she already knew about aliens. In fact, knowing about Rose's adventures sometimes made her even _harder_ to deal with. If there was anyone who was _not_ born to live with knowledge about aliens, it was Jackie Tyler.

"So, the question remains… how do I tell her?"

"Rose?"

Rose gaped. Standing right there, at the door, was her mother.

"Mum?"

* * *

"Where have you been, Rose? I was worried sick!"

Just standing there watching was nearly too much domestic for the Doctor to bear. His feet itched with the need to run. And yet, they were in his TARDIS. He didn't even have anywhere to run _to._

"Twelve months, not a word! Just, poof, vanished! I thought you were dead, Rose!"

He couldn't _believe_ this happened. And according to Rose, it happened twice! Why, oh why, did the TARDIS do this to them? To her? The ship _liked_ her!

A wave of apologies along with what could only be translated as _"This has to happen"_ answered his thought. He scowled in response.

"The hours and days and months I spent out there, all on my own! I thought Mickey killed you and ran away!"

"Oi!" Rickey objected with too much shock, considering he guessed exactly that less than an hour ago. "You didn't go around saying that did you?"

Jackie Tyler intentionally didn't look at him. That was obviously answer enough, because the boy threw his hands up and stormed out. The Doctor _really_ wanted to go with him, but something rooted him in place. It was probably not fair to make Rose face all this alone.

"What?" the woman just couldn't stop shouting. "What was I supposed to think? He was the last person they'd seen with you, and then you were both just… gone! And now you're back, and you didn't even call to tell me! If Beth hadn't seen Mickey loitering about I wouldn't even have known! Didn't you think about me at all?"

"Right, that answers one question." He _had_ been wondering how Jackie managed to find them.

Apparently he should have stayed shut up.

"And you!" the woman rounded on him. "Don't think I don't remember you! You were at the house the day before she disappeared! What did you do, huh? Did you kidnap her then threaten her to keep her quiet? If you've _done_ anything to my daughter I swear I'll…"

"Mum!" Rose interfered before the threat could be completed. "It's not that, I swear it's not. It was my choice, he just gave me a ride."

 _Technically_ she had been kidnapped. By the TARDIS. But he was never going to mention that.

"Oh yeah?" clearly Jackie wasn't convinced. "A ride where? You still haven't told me where you've been."

"Because you didn't even let me get a word in edgewise!" Rose exclaimed. Then she took a deep breath and visibly tried to calm down. She put both her hands on her mother's shoulders.

"Look, Mum, I'd hoped to break this to you gently, but since you're here that's obviously out the window. So I'm going to give it to you straight."

"Mum, this is the Doctor. He's an alien called a Time Lord, and he has this ship that can travel both space and time. Mickey and I took a trip with him to another planet today, and we aimed to be back at most hours after we left, but the ship acted up and delivered us late. To us, it has only been twelve hours since we last saw you."

Jackie stared.

"That's ridiculous, Rose. Aliens aren't real."

Both Rose and the Doctor stared back in disbelief. "Really, that's all you've got to say?"

"Mum, what do you think this" Rose waved a finger, indicating the whole console room, "is?"

"Well the décor's a bit strange," Jackie shrugged, "but some people can be weird."

"Ok, then," Rose said, eyes even wider. "Doctor? Telly, please. Any news channel."

 _"Big Ben destroyed as a UFO crash-landed in central London…"_

"Oh my, they broadcast this kind of hoax on the telly now? Look at all those people panicking at a fallen satellite. Just you watch, next thing you know all kinds of people's going to come out of the woodwork and say they'd been kidnapped by aliens or something…"

"Seriously?" He'd always been aware of the human race's gift for denial. This still shocked him.

"Urgh!" Rose looked like she was about to tear out her hair. "Right, that does it, Mum, come with me."

He watched her pulling her mother outside, Jackie protesting all the way, with the fascination of people watching train crash.

"Blimey!"

The woman rushed back in, then out, then in again.

"It's bigger on the inside!"

"And you didn't see that coming in the first time?" Rickey asked, his tone as if he'd given up on life.

"See, Rose?" the Doctor said just to distract himself from the sight, " _this_ is how people react to the TARDIS."

"It wasn't exactly the first time I saw her," Rose answered. "I did the same the first time."

"How did you do that then?" It seemed the impossible technology didn't keep Jackie in shock for long. "Who are you? What did you do with Rose? Did you… anal probe her… or…or…"

"Mum!" Rose looked both shocked and mortified. Lucky for all of them, the phone rang before the Doctor had to answer. He rushed right to it.

"Yes, hello!" he said too cheerfully, even for him. "Hold on, I'll put you on speaker."

"Um, hello, is this the Doctor?" came a hesitant voice from the other end.

"Yes, yes I am, now who are you?"

"Um, I'm Petronella Osgood of UNIT, Science Division. About the Slitheens,… I think… You need to come in. I think we have a problem."

"You think there's a problem?" She had his full attention now. "What problem? Where's Kate Stewart?"

"She's… dealing with… the problem."

"Look," Rose ignored her mother and joined the conversation. "Petronella, isn't it? Petronella, can you tell us where you are? And what the problem is? Doctor can you track her call?"

"On it," he said, already busy doing just that.

"We've got the aliens. We were going to bring them in," Osgood said while the ship was moving. "But someone's demanding we hand them over. Miss Stewart's dealing with them."

"Ok, do you know who?"

The engine stopped.

"They say they're Torchwood."


End file.
